- Is there an After?…..
Written by Fred Ritchin, professor of photography at New York University, After Photography presents the reader with what Ritchin sees as the problems and possibilities associated with digital photography.
What can be done with a digital image? For that matter what can’t be done with a digital image. The possibilities are endless.
Gone are the days when a photographer would have to return from the field to process their shots and prepare them for publication. Today their images can be sent the moment they are shot, the photographer can remain in the field and continue shooting or pause to do their own post. One of the many questions that Ritchin raises is: What do we lose when the person doing the post is not the one who was there capturing the image? How does the perspective change?
Another issue discussed is image manipulation. We all know that the beautiful image before us has had some adjustments made, but how much has been changed? There is no standard for tagging photos to let the viewer know how accurate a shot is. The definition of, say, a small adjustment, can be different depending on who you are speaking to. What does that do to photography’s ability to document things?
Ritchin raises many questions but answers very few. He does however remain excited about the possible uses of digital photography and presents many ideas in his book. For instance the possibility of using areas of a photo as essentially a launching point for further exploration of an issue or a part of an issue as proposed in After Photography certainly got me thinking.
My verdict? Well worth the read.
